How do you age your brass?

[4v50 Gary]

I'm almost finished with a powder horn I started last semester. It was a lunch time project when I couldn't use a lathe or mill and had time to kill. I scrimshawed the Santa Fe trail on it and some significant (and insignificant) towns on it. It includes Bent's Fort, Fort Union, Santa Fe, Peublo as well as the Sangre de Christo Mountains, Spanish Peaks, Fischer's Peak. It is adorned with critters like the bear, antelope and an mounted Indian about to lance a buffalo.

Anyway, since I can't relief carve the plug (my vise won't hold the horn), I decided to make it a simple dome and to put in a brass filler plug. The base gets glued into the plug and the filler plug unscrews to allow you to refill the horn with powder. It is available from Track of the Wolf, Dixie Gun Works and The Log Cabin Shop (and I imagine many other suppliers). How can I artificially age the brass? I don't have acid hands and don't know anyone in my immediate area with acid hands.

 

[BullSlinger]

I would think if it is brass with no lacquer or other means to protect the finish it should tarnish fairly quickly. I have noticed after firing a brasser gun that the brass is tarnished by the fouling from the spent powder so maybe play around with that idea. If not just give it a couple of weeks. Another thought is when I was a kid there were copper craft kits that had oxidizer liquids that were rubbed on shinny copper sheets to darken them. Bet they are still available at craft stores.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

When you clean your percussion firearm, take a little bit of the water that you used to clean the gun. Rub it on the brass. It will age it right quick.

 

[BCRider]

I seem to recall that a little lemon juice on brass starts up the aging pretty quickly.

There's also the old copper roofer's trick of urinating on the sheeting to quickly brown it and kickstart the green verdigris growth.....

 

[J-Bar]

Take the part you want to age out to the back yard. Put it on an old cookie pan or just the ground. Sprinkle black powder on the brass part, and dribble a trail of black powder a few inches long away from it to act as a fuse. Light it off with a propane torch or match. Wipe off the ash with a moist paper towel. Repeat to get the desired aged appearance. Enjoy the smoke clouds!

 

[BullSlinger]

Lemon juice won't work. It's an acid and will clean the brass. Used to do than when I was in the Army and ran out of brasso.

 

[forward observer]

Here is a link to just about every method under the sun to aging brass. Most methods use nothing more than stuff you have around the house or in your body and a heat source such as your oven.

http://steampunkjewelrybydreamsteam.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-age-brass.html

I'll waive my usual fee for this research. However, it was quite exhausting requiring me to actually have to type "how to age brass" into Google. I have to go take a nap now.

Cheers

 

[Palehorseman]

Wipe the brass down with BP fouling, bingo, instant aging.

 

[StrawHat]

Another option, Birchwood Casey makes (or made) a product called Brass Black and it worked similar to cold bluing. Wipe it on and the brass parts turned black. In use, the part would lose the blacking where it was rubbed and gave a nice aged look to the piece.

Offered freely without sarcasm for all to use.

 

[Chawbaccer]

Regular wipe on gun blue will darken it and will look better than the brass black. After treating it rub the edges and other hi-lights out on your blue jeans or something else rough to give it a more realistic looking wear pattern.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Thanks guys. Never thought I'd go to a steampunk site.

 

[CraigC]

I've also darkened uncoated brass with black leather dye.

 

[forward observer]

I tried Chewbaccer's method and it seem to work pretty well. I just happened to have had some cold blue handy and tried it on some scrap brass.

I would recommend degreasing first (denatured alcohol or xylene) to get a more even effect. I didn't and got a few streaks.

However, I also would not recommend brass black. I've used it in model railroading (HO gauge track used to be brass) and for a gun application,.

It does what it is suppose to and that is to give brass a dull matte black finish.
In between the brass just appears to have chimney soot on it, and to my eyes at no point did it ever looked like tarnished brass.

Cheers

 

[jl1288]

Choot em. ;-{) Funnest way by far.

 

[kBob]

OK I am trying one of the methods from the Steam punk site sort of.

I have chosen seven pieces of .38 Special brass which have some discoloring already and two are Control One sitting on the same shelf they have been for ages, Control Two sitting not far from the test pieces and the test group in a solution.

I will check tomorrow and see if there is any difference between groups.

-kBob

 

[4v50 Gary]

Right now I'm using Method #2 (soak in salt water/vinegar solution for 1 hour, bake @ 450 degrees F for 20 mins and then place back into salt water/vinegar solution).

 

[kBob]

Gary,

I was concerned about making a brass frame brittle and or hard by putting it in a 450 degree oven and letting it cool slowly or if cooling it quickly too soft and malliable.

Is 450 hot enough to get the metal to change color while at temperature with brass?


What do you think?

-kBob

 

[BullSlinger]

4v50 Gary, I think you will find the brass placed in vinegar cleaner. Vinegar is an acid and should clean the brass.

 

[DaveP (UK)]

A few more suggestions here - What colour were you after?
http://www.sciencecompany.com/-W160.aspx

 

[MEHavey]

If the OP just shoots BP and handles any brass
component in the normal course of fire, it will "age" in
short order.

Otherwise, just use a dirty patch from cleaning a BP
firearm and it will "age" just as fast.

 

[jgh4445]

Fire the flintlock, wipe the pan with your finger, wipe the brass...voila..done.

 

[AlexanderA]

Make a paste with powdered sulfur and oil. Rub it on the brass and it darkens immediately. Works even faster if you heat the part.

 

[4v50 Gary]

The steampunk method didn't work. I'm going to have to figure out where to get some chemicals mentioned in DaveP's post.

 

[forward observer]

The steampunk method didn't work. I'm going to have to figure out where to get some chemicals mentioned in DaveP's post.

While I did not read through all the methods at the site I linked, that vinegar and salt method does sound a little suspect. As Bullslinger mentioned, vinegar is a weak acid.

My first wife owned an antique shop, and our method of cleaning really gunky old brass was with a paste made of lemon juice and salt. However, at times she had also used vinegar instead of the lemon juice. We applied the paste with 0000 steel wool. Then eventually finished off with a conventional metal polish like Flitz or MAAS.

Of course no heat was involved in the process, so maybe that is suppose to make the difference. I never quite understood the chemistry of the paste since I thought it was pretty common knowledge that salt is a corrosive to just about any metal.

Good Luck

 

[crummyshooter]

Well, back in the old country!

There are those that make fake antiques, and one of the ways they aged brass and copper, was to bury the item in a manure pile for a few days. Now, not many have a manure pile handy, but I have aged copper in urine. I didn't think it worked too well. Maybe I'm drinking the wrong beer. A cheap red wine might have enough acid to do the trick.